mud clerk

{{Short description|Worker aboard a steamboat}}

A mud clerk was a helper or all-around worker aboard a steamboat during the period before and after the American Civil War, on rivers west of the Appalachian mountains, particularly aboard steamboats on the Mississippi River.{{cite book| url= https://books.google.com/books?id=JzLN2GACaIYC&dq=%22Mud+clerk%22+-wikipedia&pg=PA383 |title=Steamboats on the Western Rivers: An Economic and Technological History|first1=Louis|last1=Hunter|first2=Beatrice |last2=Jones Hunter|date=January 1993 |isbn=9780486278636 |page=383|publisher=Courier Corporation |access-date=November 14, 2024}}{{cite book|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=plx8SyvpyAQC&dq=%22Mud+clerk%22+-wikipedia&pg=PA180 |title =Blacklegs, Card Sharps, and Confidence Men: Nineteenth-Century Mississippi River Gambling Stories|year=1980|page=180|isbn= 9780807137369|access-date=November 14, 2024|last1 =Smith|first1 =Thomas Ruys|publisher =LSU Press}}

According to Mark Twain in his autobiography, "Mud clerks received no salary, but they were in the line of promotion. They could become, presently, third clerk and second clerk, then chief clerk -- that is to say, purser".{{cite book|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=Q4yTygb2beEC&dq=%22Mud+clerk%22+-wikipedia&pg=RA2-PT205 |first=Mark|last=Twain |title =Autobiographical Writings: A Penguin Enriched EBook Classic|year=2012|page=|publisher=Penguin |isbn= 9781101601778 |access-date=November 14, 2024}} If the mud clerk left before they completed their apprenticeship, and thus did not become a first clerk or purser, they could use their transferable skills to be a hotel clerk or similar position.{{cite book|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=8WMOAAAAMAAJ&dq=%22Mud+clerk%22+-wikipedia&pg=PA288 |title = All Aboard: Saga of the Romantic River|first=Irvin Shrewsbury |last=Cobb|year=1928 |pages=288–289|access-date=November 14, 2024}}

Mud clerks were always male, and typically in their early teens or younger.

Duties included such things as running errands for the officers of the steamboat, carrying messages around the ship, keeping watch, loading and offloading freight in poor weather, and fetching food or beverages. As the name itself implies, mud clerks would often be given the dirtiest jobs aboard ship .{{cite book|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=78bq2MKZhwIC&dq=%22Mud+clerk%22+-wikipedia&pg=PA138 |title = The Great American Steamboat Race: The Natchez and the Robert E. Lee and the Climax of an Era|first=Benton Rain |last=Patterson|year=2009|page=138| publisher=McFarland |isbn= 9780786453870 |access-date=November 14, 2024}}